On The Way To The Sky by Michael Stephans - A Review by Gordon Jack

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“Brookmeyer grew up in Kansas City and worked mainly as a pianist with a number of big bands during the early 505. He returned to the valve-trombone, which he had studied in high school, and joined Stan Getz's group at the end of 1952. It was a good time to be in a starry 'West Coast' kind of group, and Brookmeyer went on to replace Chet Baker with Gerry Mulligan (1953-7) and play in Jimmy Giuffre's trio. In every context, his droll, deceptively drowsy playing was entirely apposite, a perfect foil for the energetic Getz and Mulligan and a clever counterpart to the rustic-sounding Giuffre. His occasional piano features here and elsewhere (he went on to cut a piano-duo record with Bill Evans in 1959) kept his hand in on that instrument, and he proceeded to write charts for Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band, while also working in a two-horn quintet with Clark Terry which lasted through the early 60s. On his own admission a heroic drinker - 'I pretty well had drunk myself out of New York' - he moved to the West Coast in 1968, shed his booze problem and left music alone for a while. But friends like Bill Holman urged him back, and he toured Europe with Stan Getz in 1978. He became MD for the Jones-Lewis big band before dividing his time between Cologne, Denmark and New York: his European alliances continue to this day, and he has done some magnificent work with the New Art Orchestra of Cologne. Brookmeyer has led a modestly tempestuous life but in his autumnal years, settled with a fourth wife, he enjoys a jazz reputation which, while remote from any wider 'stardom', is copper-bottomed. On both valve-trombone and piano - on which he has a percussive, oddball style - he is all but unique, and both his records and his arrangements make up a vivid, funny, ingenious body of work. The Dutch Challenge label has made a point of recording him regularly in recent years, a responsibility which the American industry has shamefully neglected.”

• Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia [2005]

Gordon Jack is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was published in the May 23, 2026 edition of Jazz Journal. Based in the UK Gordon uses English spelling.

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

“The rich tapestry of Bob Brookmeyer’s long and distinguished career as an instrumentalist, composer and arranger is revealed here by drummer Michael Stephans who was a close personal friend and musical colleague. Brookmeyer was one of the very few major jazz soloists to specialise on the somewhat unfashionable valve-trombone and he was also a pianist of considerable wit and flair. Stephans points out that “my early exposure to Brookmeyer’s music was the first inkling I had that something special was happening in my young life”. 

 

This is not a traditional biography so events do not necessarily occur chronologically. It is what the author describes as “a hybrid work - a sort of gumbo” which becomes a gentle stroll through  Brookmeyer’s multifaceted career revealing the scope of his musicality both as a performer and as a writer. It includes biographical information, interviews and descriptions of pivotal recordings together with anecdotes from Bob’s collaborators, family members and fans which help to give Stephans’ text a personal touch. Brookmeyer began on the clarinet and with the aid of Benny Goodman’s Hot Licks book he learned to sight-read very early.  Dental problems forced a change of instrument, first to the trumpet then to the slide trombone. Ultimately the valve-trombone became “his instrument of choice”. 

He was briefly with Claude Thornhill’s orchestra where he played slide trombone and relief piano because the leader liked to go home early! His first major-league exposure as a soloist was with the Stan Getz quintet from 1952 to 1954. “The quintet was an exceptional unit, due largely to the blending of the tenor-trombone sound and the wonderful interplay between them”. In 1957 he recorded Traditionalism Revisited with Jimmy Giuffre and Jim Hall – “a great, listening experience”. They were reunited a year later when Giuffre’s famous trio appeared at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Their memorable Train And The River has been preserved on the Jazz On A Summer’s Day film. In 1959 he held his own on a two-piano album with Bill Evans (The Ivory Hunters) – “a kind of jazz history was made that day”. In 1960 he recorded The Blues Hot And Cold –“one of his greatest early achievements as a soloist”. His reunion with Stan Getz in 1961 “continues to be one of the most revered small group recordings in all of Bob’s discography”. That was the year he recorded his “Pride and Joy” -  Gloomy Sunday and Other Bright Moments.  From 1962 to 1965 he co-led a quintet with Clark Terry at the Half-Note – “great jazz by a poll-winning group...the chemistry between them both on stage and off was borne out of a deep mutual admiration  for each other”.

Throughout the fifties and into the mid-sixties he was closely associated with Gerry Mulligan’s quartet, sextet and the Concert Jazz Band (CJB). “Bob ping-ponged in and out of the quartet and sextet for several years”. Then in 1960 Mulligan asked him to write some arrangements for the CJB’s appearance at Basin Street East. He became the chief arranger eventually contributing twenty-one  charts to the band’s repertoire and Stephans highlights two for special mention: the ethereal Django’s Castle and You Took Advantage Of Me “which swings joyously  from the first note to the last”. He was also the band’s straw-boss – the hirer and firer. The CJB disbanded after a Birdland booking in December 1964, prompting the witty Mr. Brookmeyer to say somewhat tongue in cheek “we closed the original Birdland in grand style - scotch, cocaine and Santa Claus!” From 1965 to 1967 Brookmeyer became one of the primary soloists and arrangers for the Thad Jones &  Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Stephans considers his charts on Willow Tree, St. Louis Blues, Willow Weep For Me  and especially ABC Blues “to be all time classics of modern big band literature”

In 1968 Brookmeyer left New York for California where he spent a decade “moving farther and farther away from the jazz world  all the while struggling with what seemed to be a losing battle with alcohol addiction”. These difficulties are handled most sympathetically by the author. He eventually overcame his addiction ”thanks in part to a few of us (who)  offered our support when possible”. Synanon associate Frank Rehak together with Bill Holman and Stephans helped to get him playing again. The author’s friendship with Brookmeyer led to their first booking together at Donte’s Jazz Club in 1977  which represented his emergence from “a long hiatus from jazz, buried in the LA studios”. On his return to New York in 1978 he rejoined the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra as musical director after Thad Jones had left. 

 

From around 1980 Brookmeyer spent time in Europe working in radio stations in Cologne and Stockholm. He wanted to expand his creative abilities as a composer which he certainly did on his 1989 On The Way To The Sky album with the WDR Big Band. His colleague Jon Eardley from the mid-fifties Mulligan sextet was in the trumpet section. Bob said at the time “I am slowly entering the world of electronic music ...the sounds of synthesizers are becoming part of my language”. Until his death in 2011 he maintained a busy schedule organising his New Art Orchestra in Germany combined with his duties as chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band. He was also on the jazz faculty at the New England Conservatory from 1997 to 2007.

On The Way To The Sky has a Selected Videography, a Selected Discography and a Bibliography. There are thirty-eight photographs, many of them from the author’s private collection. Michael Stephans who is currently a faculty emeritus at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania is to be congratulated on a fascinating story, well told. If a full-length Bob Brookmeyer biography is ever written, this highly personalized tribute will be an essential source. 

On The Way To The Sky

By Michael Stephans.  Published by University of North Texas Press.

260pp. ISBN 9781574419696 (cloth), ISBN 9781574419771 (ebook).

Gordon Jack